For figures on Adherents of All Religions by Continent, seeTable I; for Adherents in the U.S., seeTable II.

Worldwide Adherents of All Religions, Mid-2006

Africa

Asia

Europe

Latin America

Northern America

Oceania

World

%

Number of Countries

Christians

432,553,000

354,444,000

556,284,600

526,632,700

276,490,800

26,778,300

2,173,183,400

33.2

238

Affiliated Christians

407,165,000

348,827,000

534,382,000

521,635,000

221,599,000

22,546,000

2,056,154,000

31.4

238

Roman Catholics

151,951,000

126,256,000

278,870,000

489,356,000

80,620,000

8,676,000

1,135,729,000

17.4

235

Independents

93,100,000

186,844,000

24,741,000

45,031,000

80,643,000

1,864,000

432,223,000

6.6

221

Protestants

121,917,000

58,788,000

70,995,000

56,613,000

66,035,000

7,841,000

382,179,000

5.8

232

Orthodox

39,901,000

12,832,000

158,220,000

928,000

6,748,000

804,000

219,433,000

3.4

134

Anglicans

45,586,000

752,000

26,108,000

924,000

2,914,000

4,953,000

81,237,000

1.2

163

Marginal Christians

3,451,000

3,287,000

4,678,000

10,934,000

11,742,000

666,000

34,758,000

0.5

215

Doubly-affiliated

-48,741,000

-39,922,000

-29,230,000

-82,151,000

-27,103,000

-2,258,000

-229,405,000

-3.5

169169

Unaffiliated Christians

25,388,000

5,617,000

21,902,600

4,997,700

54,891,800

4,232,300

117,029,400

1.8

232

Muslims

368,116,300

927,077,000

33,260,800

1,758,000

5,334,600

417,400

1,335,964,100

20.4

206

Hindus

2,749,000

865,072,000

1,478,000

769,000

1,490,000

424,000

871,982,000

13.3

116

Chinese universists

36,900

385,284,000

271,000

206,000

732,000

137,000

386,666,900

5.9

94

Buddhists

156,000

376,365,000

1,645,000

728,000

3,142,000

506,000

382,542,000

5.8

130

Ethnoreligionists

112,254,000

145,057,000

1,242,000

3,501,000

1,468,000

318,000

263,840,000

4.0

144

Neoreligionists

124,000

102,702,000

379,000

791,000

1,567,000

87,300

105,650,300

1.6

107

Sikhs

61,700

24,938,000

241,000

0

614,000

25,400

25,880,100

0.4

33

Jews

238,000

5,350,000

2,017,000

1,237,000

6,169,000

107,000

15,118,000

0.2

134

Spiritists

3,200

2,000

136,000

13,033,000

162,000

7,500

13,343,700

0.2

55

Baha’is

2,103,000

3,709,000

148,000

851,000

857,000

133,000

7,801,000

0.1

218

Confucianists

300

6,376,000

18,300

800

0

51,800

6,447,200

0.1

15

Jains

80,600

4,571,000

0

0

8,000

700

4,660,300

0.1

11

Shintoists

0

2,729,000

0

7,500

61,200

0

2,797,700

0.0

8

Taoists

0

2,765,000

0

0

12,000

0

2,777,000

0.0

5

Zoroastrians

1,000

152,000

5,300

0

20,400

1,600

180,300

0.0

23

Other religionists

80,000

70,000

260,000

110,000

670,000

10,000

1,200,000

0.0

78

Nonreligious

6,301,000

616,922,000

108,784,000

16,517,000

32,805,000

4,036,000

785,365,000

12.0

237

Atheists

619,000

127,021,000

21,914,000

2,788,000

2,119,000

417,000

154,878,000

2.4

219

Total population

925,477,000

3,950,606,000

728,084,000

568,930,000

333,722,000

33,458,000

6,540,277,000

100.0

238

Continents. These follow current UN demographic terminology, which now divides the world into the six major areas shown above. See United Nations, World Population Prospects: The 2004 Revision (New York: UN, 2005), with populations of all continents, regions, and countries covering the period 1950-2050, with 100 variables for every country each year. Note that "Asia" includes the former Soviet Central Asian states, and "Europe" includes all of Russia eastward to the Pacific.

Countries. The last column enumerates sovereign and nonsovereign countries in which each religion or religious grouping has a numerically significant and organized following.

Adherents. As defined in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a person’s religion is what he or she professes, confesses, or states that it is. Totals are enumerated for each of the world’s 238 countries following the methodology of the World Christian Encyclopedia, 2nd ed. (2001), and World Christian Trends (2001), using recent censuses, polls, surveys, yearbooks, reports, Web sites, literature, and other data. See the World Christian Database <www.worldchristiandatabase.org> for more detail. Religions are ranked in order of size in mid-2006.

Christians. Followers of Jesus Christ, enumerated here under Affiliated Christians, those affiliated with churches (church members, with names written on church rolls, usually total number of baptized persons, including children baptized, dedicated, or undedicated): total in 2006 being 2,056,154,000, shown above divided among the six standardized ecclesiastical blocs and with (negative and italicized) figures for those Doubly-affiliated persons (all who are baptized members of two denominations) and Unaffiliated Christians, who are persons professing or confessing in censuses or polls to be Christians though not so affiliated.

Independents. This term here denotes members of Christian churches and networks that regard themselves as postdenominationalist and neoapostolic and thus independent of historic, mainstream, organized, institutionalized, confessional, denominationalist Christianity.

Marginal Christians. Members of denominations who define themselves as Christians but who are on the margins of organized mainstream Christianity (e.g., Unitarians, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Science, and Religious Science).

Other religionists. Including a handful of religions, quasi-religions, pseudoreligions, parareligions, religious or mystic systems, and religious and semireligious brotherhoods of numerous varieties.

Nonreligious. Persons professing no religion, nonbelievers, agnostics, freethinkers, uninterested, or dereligionized secularists indifferent to all religion but not militantly so.

Atheists. Persons professing atheism, skepticism, disbelief, or irreligion, including the militantly antireligious (opposed to all religion).

Total population. UN medium variant figures for mid-2006, as given in World Population Prospects: The 2004 Revision.

Religious Adherents in the United States of America, 1900-2005

Annual Change, 2000-2005

1900

%

mid-1970

%

mid-1990

%

mid-2000

%

mid-2005

%

Natural

Conversion

Total

Rate (%)

Christians

73,260,000

96.4

190,732,000

90.8

218,335,000

85.4

238.866,000

84.1

248,290,000

83.3

2,363,700

-478,900

1,884,800

0.78

Affiliated Christians

54,425,000

71.6

152,874,000

72.8

175,327,000

68.6

192,732,000

67.8

199,100,000

66.8

1,907,100

-633,500

1,273,600

0.65

Independents

5,850,000

7.7

35,666,000

17.0

66,900,000

26.2

74,874,000

26.3

78,418,000

26.3

740,900

-32,100

708,800

0.93

Roman Catholics

10,775,000

14.2

48,305,000

23.0

56,500,000

22.1

62,970,000

22.2

65,900,000

22.1

623,100

-37,100

586,000

0.91

Protestants

35,000,000

46.1

58,568,000

27.9

60,216,000

23.5

60,497,000

21.3

61,295,000

20.6

598,600

-439,000

159,600

0.26

Marginal Christians

800,000

1.1

6,126,000

2.9

8,940,000

3.5

10,188,000

3.6

11,018,000

3.7

100,800

65,200

166,000

1.58

Orthodox

400,000

0.5

4,189,000

2.0

5,150,000

2.0

5,733,000

2.0

5,992,000

2.0

56,700

-4,900

51,800

0.89

Anglicans

1,600,000

2.1

3,196,000

1.5

2,450,000

1.0

2,325,000

0.8

2,206,000

0.7

23,000

-46,800

-23,800

-1.05

Doubly-affiliated

0

0.0

-3,176,000

-1.5

-24,829,000

-9.7

-23,855,000

-8.4

-25,729,000

-8.6

-236,100

-138,700

-374,800

-1.52

Evangelicals

32,068,000

42.2

35,248,000

16.8

38,400,000

15.0

42,600,000

15.0

43,918,000

14.7

421,500

-157,900

263,600

0.61

evangelicals

11,000,000

14.5

45,500,000

21.7

88,449,000

34.6

98,326,000

34.6

102,081,000

34.2

973,000

-222,000

751,000

0.75

Unaffiliated Christians

18,835,000

24.8

37,858,000

18.0

42,835,000

16.8

46,134,000

16.2

49,190,000

16.5

456,500

154,700

611,200

1.29

Jews

1,500,000

2.0

6,700,000

3.2

5,535,000

2.2

5,642,000

2.0

5,729,000

1.9

55,800

-38,400

17,400

0.31

Muslims

10,000

0.0

800,000

0.4

3,499,600

1.4

4,316,000

1.5

4,752,200

1.6

42,700

44,500

87,200

1.94

Black Muslims

0

0.0

200,000

0.1

1,250,000

0.5

1,650,000

0.6

1,850,000

0.6

16,300

23,700

40,000

2.31

Buddhists

30,000

0.0

200,000

0.1

1,880,000

0.7

2,509,000

0.9

2,703,000

0.9

24,800

14,000

38,800

1.50

Neoreligionists

10,000

0.0

560,000

0.3

1,155,000

0.5

1,423,000

0.5

1,483,000

0.5

14,100

-2,100

12,000

0.83

Ethnoreligionists

100,000

0.1

70,000

0.0

780,000

0.3

1,083,000

0.4

1,294,000

0.4

10,700

31,500

42,200

3.62

Hindus

1,000

0.0

100,000

0.0

750,000

0.3

1,053,000

0.4

1,137,000

0.4

10,400

6,400

16,800

1.55

Baha’is

2,800

0.0

138,000

0.1

600,000

0.2

771,000

0.3

818,000

0.3

7,600

1,800

9,400

1.19

Sikhs

0

0.0

1,000

0.0

160,000

0.1

239,000

0.1

268,000

0.1

2,400

3,400

5,800

2.32

Spiritists

0

0.0

0

0.0

120,000

0.0

141,000

0.0

148,000

0.0

1,400

0

1,400

0.97

Chinese universists

70,000

0.1

90,000

0.0

76,000

0.0

80,000

0.0

86,200

0.0

800

400

1,200

1.50

Shintoists

0

0.0

0

0.0

50,000

0.0

57,400

0.0

60,200

0.0

600

0

600

0.96

Zoroastrians

0

0.0

0

0.0

14,400

0.0

16,100

0.0

16,900

0.0

200

0

200

0.97

Taoists

0

0.0

0

0.0

10,000

0.0

11,400

0.0

11,900

0.0

100

0

100

0.86

Jains

0

0.0

0

0.0

5,000

0.0

7,100

0.0

7,600

0.0

100

0

100

1.37

Other religionists

10,200

0.0

450,000

0.2

530,000

0.2

577,000

0.2

600,000

0.2

5,700

-1,100

4,600

0.78

Nonreligious

1,000,000

1.3

10,070,000

4.8

21,442,000

8.4

26,038,000

9.2

29,329,000

9.8

257,700

400,500

658,200

2.41

Atheists

1,000

0.0

200,000

0.1

770,000

0.3

1,324,000

0.5

1,479,000

0.5

13,100

17,900

31,000

2.24

U.S. population

75,995,000

100.0

210,111,000

100.0

255,539,000

100.0

284,154,000

100.0

298,213,000

100.0

2,812,000

0

2,812,000

0.97

Methodology. This table extracts and analyzes a microcosm of the world religion table. It depicts the United States, the country with the largest number of adherents to Christianity, the world’s largest religion. Statistics at five points in time from 1900 to 2005 are presented. Each religion’s Annual Change for 2000–2005 is also analyzed by Natural increase (births minus deaths, plus immigrants minus emigrants) per year and Conversion increase (new converts minus new defectors) per year, which together constitute the Total increase per year. Rate increase is then computed as percentage per year.

Structure. Vertically the table lists 30 major religious categories. The major categories (including nonreligious) in the U.S. are listed with the largest (Christians) first. Indented names of groups in the first column are subcategories of the groups above them and are also counted in these unindented totals, so they should not be added twice into the column total. Figures in italics represent adherents from all categories of Christians above and so cannot be added together with them. Figures for Christians are built upon detailed head counts by churches, often to the last digit. Totals are then rounded to the nearest 1,000. Because of rounding, the corresponding percentage figures may sometimes not total exactly to 100%. Religions are ranked in order of size in 2005.

Christians. All persons who profess publicly to follow Jesus Christ as God and Savior. This category is subdivided into Affiliated Christians (church members) and Unaffiliated (nominal) Christians (professing Christians not affiliated with any church). See also the note on Christians to the world religion table. The first six lines under "Affiliated Christians" are ranked by size in 2005 of each of the six blocs (Anglican, Independent, Marginal Christian, Orthodox, Protestant, and Roman Catholic).

Evangelicals/evangelicals. These two designations--italicized and enumerated separately here--cut across all of the six Christian traditions or ecclesiastical blocs listed above and should be considered separately from them. The Evangelicals (capitalized "E") are mainly Protestant churches, agencies, and individuals who call themselves by this term (for example, members of the National Association of Evangelicals); they usually emphasize 5 or more of 7, 9, or 21 fundamental doctrines (salvation by faith, personal acceptance, verbal inspiration of Scripture, depravity of man, Virgin Birth, miracles of Christ, atonement, evangelism, Second Advent, et al.). The evangelicals (lowercase "e") are Christians of evangelical conviction from all traditions who are committed to the evangel (gospel) and involved in personal witness and mission in the world.

Other categories. Definitions are as given under the world religion table.

Protests by Muslims outraged by cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, indelicate remarks by Pope Benedict XVI, theological conflict in the Anglican Communion, a sex scandal involving an evangelical leader, and a 1,700-year-old text reporting a conversation between Jesus and Judas Iscariot drew the world’s attention in 2006.

Sectarian and Political Issues

ReligionAPEarly 2006 saw a firestorm of outrage in Muslim communities over a series of cartoons—first published in September 2005 in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten—that made light of the Prophet Muhammad. (SeeWorld Affairs:Denmark.) Although protests by Muslims were low-key at the time of publication, they erupted into violence around the world in February 2006, after Saudi Arabia recalled its ambassador to Denmark to protest the cartoons and several European newspapers reprinted them to support freedom of expression. Countries where people were killed in rioting over the cartoons included Afghanistan, Libya, and Nigeria, where 15 churches were burned. In October the City Court in Århus, Den., rejected a lawsuit brought against Jyllands-Posten by seven Muslim groups, saying there was no evidence that the cartoons had been intended to “present opinions that can belittle Muslims.”

In a September 12 address at the University of Regensburg, Ger., Pope Benedict XVI quoted from a book recounting a conversation between 14th-century Byzantine Christian Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus and a Persian scholar on the teachings of Christianity and Islam. “The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war,” the pope said, continuing in the emperor’s words, “ ‘Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.’ ” That portion of the address, in which the pope condemned any religious motivation for violence, was denounced by Muslim leaders in several countries. He subsequently made two apologies for the controversy, emphasizing that he did not agree with the emperor’s comments, and met with Muslim diplomats at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, to try to defuse the controversy. During a four-day visit to Turkey in November–December, the pope called for “authentic dialogue between Christians and Muslims”; shared an auditorium stage with Ali Bardakoglu, the head of the predominantly Muslim country’s Directorate of Religious Affairs and one of his chief critics; and prayed alongside the grand mufti of Istanbul in the 17th-century Blue Mosque.

In Washington in February, King Abdullah of Jordan became the first Muslim head of state to address the largely evangelical Christian audience at a national prayer breakfast. He discussed the similarities between Islam, Judaism, and Christianity and described extremism as “a political movement under religious cover.” An interfaith gathering in Moscow in July brought together nearly 300 representatives of religious communities from 49 countries, who condemned “terrorism and extremism in any form, as well as attempts to justify them by religion.” The gathering was addressed by Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin, who warned that “attempts are being made to split the world on the basis of religion or ethnicity, to drive a wedge primarily between the Christian and Islamic communities.” An international group called the Alliance of Civilizations, made up of 20 prominent figures in religion and government, issued a report in November urging leaders and shapers of public opinion to “avoid violent or provocative language about other people’s beliefs or sacred symbols.” The report, which was presented to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan at a ceremony in Istanbul, also said that “a symbiotic relationship may be emerging between religion and politics in our time, each influencing the other.”

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